Thursday, March 19, 2015

Which team do you think will win this year's NCAA basketball tournament?

“Selection Sunday” for this year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball
Tournament was this past Sunday, and 68 outstanding teams made the cut for this
year’s “Big Dance.” Four play-in games were played on Tuesday and yesterday
(Wednesday), which narrowed the field to 64 teams. The No. 1 seeds in this
year’s tournament include undefeated Kentucky, Villanova, Duke and Wisconsin.

Most of the first-round games will be played today
(Thursday) and tomorrow (Friday), which will cut the number of teams involved
in the tourney down to 32. More than likely, the favored teams will win the
first round games, but you can also probably expect an upset or two.

Teams that I expect to win their first round games in the
Midwest Regional include Kentucky, Purdue, West Virginia, Maryland, Texas,
Notre Dame, Wichita State and Kansas.

In the West Regional, I look for Wisconsin, Oregon,
Arkansas, North Carolina, Baylor, Ohio State and Arizona to win their
first-round games.

In the East Regional, I predict that Villanova, North
Carolina State, Northern Iowa, Louisville, Oklahoma, Providence, Michigan State
and Virginia will all be first-round winners.

Last, but not least, in the South Regional, I look for Duke,
San Diego State, Utah, Georgetown, SMU, Iowa State, Iowa and Gonzaga to get out
of the first round.

Many people are looking for Kentucky to make a strong run
and to possibly finish the season unbeaten. However, I seriously doubt they’ll
be able to navigate the tournament without falling along the way somewhere.

Kentucky will probably make the Final Four, but that might
be as far as they get. Don’t be surprised if Kentucky faces either Wisconsin or
Arizona in the Final Four round, which will be played on April 4. Wisconsin and
Arizona stand a strong chance of beating Kentucky.

Interestingly, Sports Illustrated agrees. In last week’s
issue of SI, Dan Greene predicted that five teams have a good shot at upsetting
Kentucky. In addition to Wisconsin and Arizona, he also predicted that
Virginia, Duke and Northern Iowa stand a chance of beating Kentucky.

Of course, we’re talking about the NCAA Men’s Basketball
Tournament, and if anything can be said about that annual sporting event, it’s
that it’s highly unpredictable. It’s nearly impossible to pick a perfect
bracket, so you can bet some of the teams you think will go far, will get sent
to the house early.

Personally, at this point, I look for the Final Four to
include Kentucky, Wisconsin, Virginia and Gonzaga. From there, I expect
Wisconsin to upset Kentucky and for Gonzaga to beat Virginia. In the finals,
which will be played on April 6, I look for Wisconsin to beat Gonzaga.

With that said, this time next week, I’ll probably have a
totally different opinion as soon as some bracket-busting underdog makes short
work of millions of brackets across the country. Only time will tell, but one
thing is for sure, we’ve got a lot of great college basketball to look forward
to in the next few weeks.